We walked along the street, up and up the hill to where the houses turned gigantic. We crossed the park with the splash pad — we’d been there once with Mamá when it was still summer and we were still happy.
This was such a nice area that it looked like after crossing my street, we’d traveled to a different world. My sisters felt the change too because they’d fallen quiet, in awe at the beautiful, enormous houses and lawns we passed.
Maverick stopped by the biggest house we’d seen yet. Life-sized bronze statues dotted the lawn. They looked tiny next to the house.
“Here we are. Welcome to my home.”
The girls and I walked into Maverick’s house with the same kind of reverence one feels when entering a church or the library. Some kind of special, sacred place like that. But then, people didn’t live in a church or a library, and in Maverick’s house, it was obvious that in spite of the beauty and luxury, people lived here, in this castle, this mansion.
Maverick’s sisters must have been off-the-charts popular girls. When Maverick said they’d invited a few friends from church, I imagined they’d have one or two friends each that they would read the Bible with, or something along those lines. But as soon as we walked in, a sea of every kind of fancy footwear received us at the front door. If I sold these shoes by the road, I’d make a fortune.
“Shoes off, Mavvy?” Avi asked, already kicking off her boots, the ones Mamá had brought for her that last night.
In no shape or form would I take my shoes off. My socks weren’t pretty, and I didn’t want to leave my ugly no-name shoes next to all the nice ones. How to say this aloud though? While Maverick helped Avi and Kota with their shoes, I drifted away, looking at the beautiful family portraits on the walls. They’d been professionally made, at different locations, all exotic and faraway like the moon. At least for me, who’d never even been to the beach or Disneyland.
Maverick’s family was so good-looking. They should all be on magazine covers. I recognized his mom as the lady who’d grabbed him by the arm the night of the auditions. She was as tall as his father. They both had short, dark hair that curled around their ears. They were perfectly matched. Her mouth was wide, perfect for smiling, which it looked like she did often.
Five of Maverick’s sisters were smaller versions of their parents. Well-dressed, good-looking, happy. Even Maverick, who was Latino, and one of the sisters, who looked Asian and was obviously adopted too, had the same satisfied smile that said, We have the greatest family on earth.
“Maverick, are these your little friends?” asked a rich voice, the voice of a singer.
And there she was, Maverick’s mom, in person and full color. She wore bright red high heels, inside the house.
Maverick’s mom rocked.
She had wrinkles around her eyes and mouth, and after seeing her for two seconds, I could tell they were laugh and smile wrinkles. The marks of happiness, so opposite to the creases on Mamá’s forehead from all her worrying.
“Welcome to our house,” she said.
Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who’d fallen for her at first sight. Avi ran and gave her a hug.
“Avi,” Kota muttered, voicing the embarrassment (or jealousy) eating me from the inside out. “What are you doing?”
Mamá had been gone for three days, and Avi already was willing to go to anyone who showed her a little kindness. Was she forgetting Mamá already?
“Aren’t you a sweetheart?” Maverick’s mom said, hugging Avi back. “There’s plenty of food, girls. Help yourselves while I sort out this crowd, okay?”
Avi ignored her instructions about the food and trailed behind her like a kite tail instead.
“These your friends, Mav?” Maverick’s Asian sister asked. A group of friends followed her, and they all cooed and ahhed at Avi’s angelic beauty. Even Kota’s cheeks got kisses and pinches.
“I’m McKenna. Come play with us on the trampoline!” Maverick’s sister said, and before I could blink, Kota was gone. Gone. She’d left me for the cool older girls, and I couldn’t even blame her. I was too self-conscious of my clothes and the rest of my appearance to join them, but Kota didn’t mind. She wanted to be someone’s pet. Avi was still following Maverick’s mom like a stray kitten that’s been offered food and love. That left me free to hang out with my friend for the first time in forever.
“Looks like they left you all alone,” Maverick joked.
He didn’t know how liberating it was to be alone for a few minutes. First time I didn’t have to worry about my sisters since they were born.
“Let’s go eat,” he said, and then he led me to the kitchen.
Good heavens and everything good on earth! The kitchen was a dream. I’d never seen anything like it before. The stainless-steel appliances gleamed against the blackness of the stone countertops, so huge that they held trays and trays of food and still there was room to sit beside them on stools that looked straight out of a catalog. I was sure they were.
Seeing so much food in one place made me dizzy.
“Try a slider,” Maverick said, passing a tray of mini-burgers in my direction.
I eyed them with love and took one, although I wanted to grab the whole tray and run away before they disappeared. This had to be a fantasy. The bread and meat melted in my mouth. Flavors exploded on my tongue, and tears sprang to my eyes. Food was the best thing in the world.
From a corner of my eye, I saw Avi daintily eating a stick of fruits at the counter top, holding Maverick’s mom’s hand. The ordeal of leaving Avi in the school basement, the fire, and the whole morning seemed like a million years away.
If only I could bottle this moment forever. When we returned home, the house would still be empty, our mom gone. No food in the cupboards. Why couldn’t we get a family like this?
Why did some have so much material stuff, so many people to love and care for them, and others had so little? Whoever was in charge of dividing the good things in life had seriously failed at long division.
“Aren’t you hungry?” Maverick asked.
My plate was piled with food, but the one slider I’d eaten sat in my stomach like a stone. Not because I didn’t want to eat — oh yes, I wanted to eat this delicious food — but the thought that the life I was given was so unfair killed my appetite.
As soon as it had come, I shooed the thought away. How wasn’t I going to eat this amazing food? Rock in the pit of my stomach or not, I kept on chewing until it dissolved, and I moved on to another slider. It was even more delicious than the first.
“I’m just thinking,” I replied, my eyes on Kota doing an impersonation of some YouTuber to make McKenna and her friends laugh, and being totally successful at it.
Ask and you shall receive, Kota had said.
My heart was a twisting bunny inside me. I couldn’t hold this secret any longer. Someone else had to know.
“Maverick?” I said, avoiding his eyes because I was too embarrassed. “Can you keep a secret?”
* * *
Maverick liked secrets.
He led me to a room he called the den, this super-modern play area at the other end of the house, complete with real arcade games, ping-pong and foosball tables, and room to spare. In a corner, a canopy made the perfect secret-telling spot. We sat there.
“Go ahead,” he said, probably confusing my shock at the size of his house with me changing my mind about revealing my secret.
I was stunned by the size of this place. My sisters and I could happily live in a little out-of-the-way corner, and no one would ever notice us. We’d be in no one’s way.
Maverick was a good listener. He didn’t interrupt as I told him everything. That is, everything but the part about the fairies and their help. Kota had already told him, and he hadn’t believed it.
I hated to see the weight of my worry transferred to him like this, but so many people had he
lped him carry his burdens all his life. I didn’t have anyone but him, and the weight of my secret was too much for me. I wanted out. I wanted peace.
“Are you serious? She just left?” he asked.
I fidgeted on my seat. “I don’t know. I don’t know what she did or what happened. I just know she didn’t come back from work. It’s been three full days. Since Sunday night.”
He scratched his head. Maybe it was the worry, but his face went all pointy and serious, all the happiness gone from him. “We can tell my mom and ask her to help you. Once the people leave, we can see if you guys can sleep here. Until your mom comes back.”
When I exhaled, my shoulders relaxed for the first time since Monday morning. “Really? Thank you!”
Maverick bit his lip and glanced out to the foosball table where another one of his sisters — Rose — laughed with some friends.
“Should we tell your mom right now, though? Maybe she can help me call her job and see if she left a message there or something.” Now that I had told him my secret, I wondered why I’d kept it to myself for so long.
A cloud went over Maverick’s face. “Let’s wait until after the party. There are too many things going on right now.”
He was totally right. The house was so huge, and more and more people showed up by the minute. Every once in a while, I checked on the girls, and every time, they were happy being someone’s doll. So I ate the delicious food although I was already full, and waited.
I’d take Maverick’s and his mom’s help, but I should also do something on my part, and the only person from my family I could ask for help was my unknown grandma.
“Do you have a computer?” I asked.
“Sure. What for?” Maverick’s earlier excitement with me and my sisters’ staying over was starting to go weak. I knew the signs: The too-ready answers. The faraway look in his eyes. In case us staying here was a no-go, we needed a plan B.
I told him about Abuela, and while I talked, he headed to one of the computers just sitting there on a table (there were five. Five computers) and clicked on the keyboard for a couple of minutes.
“Ta-da!” he finally said, and pointed to the picture of a lady on a screen. Fátima Grant, my abuela. Mamá’s mother. I looked so much like her there was no question we were related. The same angular face. The same slender and small body frame.
“Wow,” Maverick said. “She looks like she could be your mom. She’s a young-looking grandma.”
She was. Her hair was curly like mine, and her white smile was framed by bright-pink painted lips. She looked even younger than my mom, who never wore makeup.
“Do you think it’s okay if I wrote her a message?”
“Of course! She can come help you maybe.”
It wasn’t so easy for a person to travel from the other end of the world, especially to see three girls she’d never met before. But she was the only one who could help.
I wrote in Spanish, knowing I would have tons of errors. I had never learned to spell in Spanish, but maybe she would understand me all the same.
Abuela,
This is Minerva, your daughter Natalia’s daughter. Our mom is gone. We don’t know where she is. We need help. Call us.
I added our phone number and address, hoping I was giving her all the information she’d need to contact me. I clicked send while my heart pounded up a storm.
If only it were this easy for a person to travel! Easy like sending a message on the internet. When was someone going to invent an instant-travel machine? When I was the president of the United States, I would hire the best scientists in the world to build it for kids who were lonely. For kids who’d never met their family from faraway places in the world.
“I’m going to the bathroom and I’ll be right back, okay?” Maverick said, leaving me at the computers a little longer.
“Okay,” I said, realizing this was the perfect opportunity to look up that article Mamá had once told me about. The one about the Peter Pan play.
The Internet is magic. A few clicks later, I’d found an article from the Smithsonian museum that explained how Peter Pan was so offensive to Indigenous people. Best of all, it included a section on how some directors had replaced the Indians with Amazons. There was another one from The Children’s Theater Company website that explained how the play had been adapted for schools. I felt like shouting “Eureka!” Instead, I emailed the links to Mrs. Santos and printed out the articles to read again at home.
I grabbed the still-warm papers from the printer, folded them, and was putting them in my pocket when Maverick returned from the bathroom.
“What do you want to do now?” he asked. “I mean, before we tell my mom you guys are staying over.”
Poor Maverick. He thought my problem would be solved so easily. But the more I looked around me, the more I noticed that we couldn’t stay here. Sure, his mom could help me find my mom, ask around, but I knew three girls with no family was a bigger burden than anyone would like to deal with. Would I repay the Sorensens’ kindness by bringing so many issues to them?
I wasn’t such a bad friend to go that low, I hoped.
But I could have fun for a little while longer, before the slap of being alone woke me up to reality.
Kota and Avi had eaten their fill and were having fun. Avi played with another little girl her age who wore the most darling outfit ever. She looked like a princess in a pink silk dress and tiara. The two babies played with a ceramic tea set, their movements so dainty and careful my eyes prickled with emotion. Avi had never had a friend before.
Meanwhile, Kota was getting drunk on soda, watching a movie with the teenagers. It was still early.
My sisters were having fun.
Maybe I could have some fun.
“Can we go on a scooter ride?” I asked.
Maverick smiled like a devil. “You’re not scared?”
I bit down on my lips, but I was sure he could tell I was smiling.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll drive first so you can know what it’s like, how it works. There’s no gears at all, just the go button and the brakes. It’s easy enough.”
Once outside, I sat behind him, and trying to touch as little of him as possible, I grabbed the edge of his shirt. The scooter lurched forward. Afraid I’d fall on my head, I grabbed the back of the seat.
“Okay back there?” he asked.
“Okay,” I said, but what I really wanted to say was, What did I get myself into?
The sound of crunching leaves mixed with the buzzing of the engine as we zoomed through the neighborhood. If this was what flying felt like, then maybe Peter Pan wasn’t such an idiot. Maybe it would be worth staying a kid forever for a chance to go zipping through the neighborhood like motorized mosquitos. Mosquitos were still flyers, and flying meant freedom.
My eyes watered because of the cold air, and soon my nose started running. Good thing I had wiped it with the back of my hand before Maverick noticed because when we went around a corner, Maverick stopped at a house even bigger and more beautiful than his. This house was majestic enough to be the mayor’s house. Bailey’s house? I wondered if she lived in this neighborhood. She had to.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“This is Blessings’s house,” Maverick said. “I’ll say hi. Do you mind?”
“No,” I said in a tone that meant I don’t care at all, but I cared. He’d been hanging out with me. Why did he need Blessings now?
Because I was jealous but not stupid, I couldn’t tell my only friend that I wanted him to hang out only with me. How weird would that be? But a corner of my puppy heart wished that if I wasn’t his only friend, then I was his best friend. Maybe when I ran for student body president, he could manage my campaign. Maverick knew all the right people.
“Can I go on a ride by myself while you hang out with him? Just a turn around the block,
” I said.
Maverick didn’t even bat an eyelash. “Sure.”
Then, thinking better of my idea, I asked, “I’ve never driven one before. Is it hard?”
Maverick laughed and shook his head. “It’s just like riding a bicycle.”
I didn’t know how to ride a bike, either, but I didn’t want him to know.
One day, people would ask, “President Miranda, how did you learn to ride your motorcycle?”, and I would tell the story, and everyone would envy the wonderful friend I had. That’s why Maverick would make an excellent campaign manager. The idea appealed to me more and more by the second.
He explained which buttons to push, how to stop, and to pay attention to the sound. “You’ll notice how the intensity of the . . . I don’t know what to call it . . . the BROOM, BROOM sound decreases.”
“The thrum,” I said, trying not to laugh. “The BROOM, BROOM sound is called thrum.”
The streetlight came on in time to shine the surprise on his face. “Ooh! The thrum, huh?”
“See you later,” I said, smiling so wide my cheeks hurt.
He waved his hand as he walked to Blessings’s front door. Blessings? Understatement of the year. The guy was an All-In-One if there ever was one. Good looking, rich, well liked, star of the play.
I turned the engine on, and after a couple of deep breaths, I let go.
At first, the scooter wobbled, but I straightened it out before it leaned too much to the side. Still, sweat exploded in my armpits, but the wind quickly made the nerves go away. My knuckles shone white under the street lamps, but by the second lap, I let my hands relax a little.
I also dared to look at my surroundings. Not only were the houses enormous in this neighborhood, but the orchards extended over acres of land, waiting with open branches to hand out food that no one needed or even wanted. Apples lay on the ground unpicked. Maybe in the future, if we needed to, the girls and I could come to this area and take the unwanted food we needed so much.
On These Magic Shores Page 11